This Extremely Rare Aston Martin Cygnet Is Living A Rough Life In Rome

So picture this, I'm waiting in line outside the Basilica of Santa Maria in Cosmedin to stick my hand in the Bocca della Verità, (You know, like the scene in Roman Holiday with Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck?), and what drives by but maybe the rarest street car I've ever laid eyes on. There is was, resplendent in Aston Martin's then-signature Madagascar Orange, the greatest Japanese-British collaboration since the Beatles played the Nippon Budokan hall in Tokyo circa 1966. There it is, the elusive Aston Martin Cygnet. 

My jaw damn near hit the floor when I saw this four-seater city car with a winged badge roll through the piazza. Underneath it's no more exciting than any other Toyota (née Scion) iQ. It's the same 1.3-liter 97-horsepower inline four, it still does naught to sixty in 11.8 seconds, and it still drives just as wobbly as its tall greenhouse might suggest. Easily among the least sporty and least quick things to ever wear the famed badge of Gaydon, the Cygnet is a magnificent wonder of European car history. 

While standing on the sidewalk, mouth agape and i-telephone camera pointed, I couldn't find the words to explain to my wife and our family the importance of what we'd just witnessed. To them, this was just another small car in a sea of European and Chinese-built small cars. Being that this occurred on what was our tenth day in Italy, the sight of tiny cars was no longer a thing of wonder, it had become commonplace. But this was no regular tiny car, it had nice leather and a cool grille! Why couldn't they understand that this car signified a boondoggle for Aston Martin, and allegedly sold fewer than 600 units worldwide!

You'll be forgiven for not remembering the Aston Martin Cygnet, as it was a mere footnote in the written history of the world-famous brand fifteen years ago. Aston Martin, when faced with tightening European Union-imposed fleetwide average emissions standards, was up against a wall. With the new regulations debuting for the 2012 model year, then Aston Martin CEO Ulrich Bez called the ultimate audible play, and asked Toyota to play ball.  

"A luxury solution to urban motoring in a unique and innovative format," claimed Aston, "Cygnet was conceived, designed and built as a true Aston Martin."

The idea was to create a city car fit for the James Bond set, pumping up the luxury and the hand-assembled fit and finish Aston had become known for, without any of the go-fast or fuel guzzling of its other models. Aston had a taste for carbon dioxide, shaken, not stirred, and it needed to kick the habit. 

Bez had hoped that Aston could shift as many as 4,000 units of the diminutive Brit-badged Toyota per year with a sky-high price tag of about 30,000 British Pounds Sterling (when a standard Toyota iQ cost about ten grand). To give a bit more perspective, that's about $60,000 in 2025 money, considering inflation. It was certainly the least expensive Aston Martin by a mile, and boasted significantly less cost of ownership with Toyota reliability and stellar MPGs.

It goes without saying that the Cygnet was a flop. It didn't come anywhere near the lofty goal of 4,000 annual units. The Brit brand figured it would be able to sell most of its stock to UK buyers, and particularly current Aston Martin owners who had the dosh to throw around. According to Top Gear, just 150 cars were sold in the brand's home country. 

Being an automotive nerd of the highest order, I was obsessed with the idea of the Cygnet when it dropped. I didn't want one, to be sure, but the fact that the market conditions existed for Aston Martin to believe this was its best course of action drove me wild. How many meetings, how many lawyers, how many reams of paper did it take for this to get greenlit, and nobody paused to imagine how it might be received? Desperate times call for desperate measures, I suppose. 

The one I saw on the streets of Rome looked like it had lived a more strenuous life than pretty much any other Aston Martin product ever built. It was just another city car here. Maybe a nicely appointed one, but it's been through the wringer. 

Top Gear called the Cygnet one of its "Fails of the Century" which is quite damning from the media outlet known for slobbering over anything Aston builds. When you can't even get your stans to love you, you're toast. 

That interior does look nice, though.